Local Government

Summary

Mr C complained that the council failed to take reasonable steps to ensure that his aunt's hot water and heating system was properly maintained. He was also concerned that the council failed to deal with his subsequent complaints in a reasonable or timely manner.

Our investigation found that Mr C's aunt had had problems with the hot water and heating system for many years. However, in each case where faults were reported to the council, they had arranged for engineers to visit to attend to them. In addition, the council offered to provide a replacement hot water and heating system in January 2012, but council officers had been unable to gain access to allow this to go ahead. Following our contact with the council they offered again to install a new heating system but Mr C's aunt advised that she did not want this as it would be too disruptive. As we did not find evidence to show that the council failed in their responsibilities to maintain the hot water and heating system we did not uphold this element of the complaint.

We did, however, find that the council took longer than their stated timescale to respond to Mr C's complaint and also failed to consider earlier correspondence as formal complaints.

Recommendations

We recommended that the council:

• apologise to Mr C for failing to identify his complaint at an earlier stage, following his emails of 25 and 29 February 2012, and failing to respond to his complaint within the timescales detailed in their complaints procedure.

Summary

Ms C rented a property from a housing association. She claimed housing and council tax benefit from the council. Ms C thought that she was charged too much rent because the housing benefit department did not include an amount for a service charge on her tenancy. She said that she had asked for an explanation of her rent but they did not provide it. In early 2010, the council carried out a joint investigation with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which found that Ms C was not entitled to all the benefits she had been receiving. This meant that the DWP wanted to recover incapacity benefit, and the council wanted to recover housing and council tax benefit from her. Ms C told us that she wrote to the council saying that she wanted to appeal, and they said that they would pass this to the tribunal service. However, they did not do so, as they said that the DWP could not confirm that Ms C had appealed the incapacity benefit decision. The council said that, as it was the primary benefit, Ms C needed to appeal it first before appealing the other benefits. They began recovering overpayments of housing and council tax benefit. Ms C had, in fact, appealed the DWP decision but they had overlooked this until November 2010. In December 2010, it went in front of an appeal tribunal, which upheld the original decision.

In May 2011, however, the council found that the DWP had accepted a further appeal out-of-time. On that basis, the council suspended the recovery of housing and council tax benefit. Ms C asked them to make a discretionary housing payment to write off these two benefit overpayments, but the council told her that they could not consider a discretionary payment for this purpose. Ms C made a further application for a discretionary housing payment in September 2011, as she was suffering hardship. The council did not respond as they were waiting for the outcome of Ms C's incapacity benefit appeal before making a decision. In January 2012, the incapacity benefit appeal tribunal found in Ms C's favour, and wrote off all her incapacity benefit overpayment. The council did not accept the conclusion of the incapacity benefit tribunal but agreed, as a gesture of goodwill, not to recover the remainder of Ms C's other overpaid benefits.

We found no evidence that the council provided the housing association with incorrect information about Ms C's benefit entitlement or failed to respond to her enquiries about the reasons for increases in her rent and deductions from her benefit. Our investigation did, however, find strong evidence that the council did not deal appropriately with Ms C's requests for her overpayment decision to be sent to the tribunal, and for deductions to be stopped. Although they told her that she had not confirmed that she wanted to progress matters to the tribunal, we found that Ms C had quite clearly said she wanted to appeal. In the circumstances, the council should also have considered suspending the deductions, as their policy was to stop deductions when an appeal was outstanding. We found that the council correctly refused Ms C's first application for a discretionary housing payment application. However, we found that they unreasonably delayed on the second application and failed to provide any sort of communication during the application process.

Recommendations

We recommended that the council:

• credit Ms C's rent and council tax accounts with any monies already taken relating to the overpayment, confirming in writing to her when they have done so;
• apologise for failing to suspend payments of housing benefit after her request for an appeal and providing inaccurate information for their failure;
• review their practice relating to accepting appeals and suspending repayment of overpayments to reflect housing and council tax benefit guidance;
• apologise for delaying Ms C's application and for failing to communicate effectively when processing her discretionary housing payment; and
• remind relevant staff of their responsibilities to deal with applications for discretionary housing payments promptly and to communicate effectively with applicants when considering such payments.

Summary

Miss C asked the council to change the type of heating in her house from electric to gas. When they said they would not do this, she complained that this was unfair because council tenants with solid fuel heating have a choice of heating type. Miss C said that the council had failed to properly investigate the inefficiencies in her heating system, which she said caused discomfort to her family and resulted in high heating bills, and that it was unreasonable to refuse her request when there was no cost efficient electric alternative.

As a result of our investigation, the council reviewed their original assessment of Miss C's property and found that it did require to be brought up to the 2015 Scottish Housing Quality Standards. The council proposed to carry out a further assessment using new software, to provide the most up-to-date readings, and shortly after that to provide Miss C with suitable options to bring her house up to standard. As the action taken by the council would result in the upgrading of the heating system, and was a positive step towards achieving what Miss C wanted in bringing her complaint to us, we decided that there was no need to continue investigating the matter, and closed her complaint.

Summary

Mr C reported the possible misuse of a blue badge in a public car park to the council and did not receive a reply. When he reminded the council about this, Mr C received an apology for the delay and an assurance that the matter would be investigated and appropriate action would be taken. When Mr C asked for more information about what action would be taken, he was told that the badge holder would be written to. He was also told that the council were satisfied that the holder legitimately qualified for a badge but that they could not provide Mr C with details of the investigation as this was sensitive information. From the information that was made available, Mr C was not satisfied that the investigation into his complaint had been handled properly, or how the officers who had investigated his complaint about the handling of the matter could have reached this conclusion. Mr C also complained that the council did not meet the timescales for responding to his complaint.

We did not uphold Mr C's complaints. Our investigation found that the evidence confirmed that the council had investigated Mr C's complaint and taken appropriate action. We were satisfied that their reply was factually correct and set out the position as clearly as was possible, given that the information which could be released to him was limited as it related to personal information about a third party. This meant the council could not give him all the information he wanted. Finally we found that, although there was a delay in acknowledging Mr C's initial contact about the matter, the council had responded to later correspondence in accordance with their service standards.

Summary

Mr C complained about the council's handling of planning proposals for a new academic campus some distance from his home. A council committee granted planning approval in principle in May 2010 although the consent was not issued until March 2011. An initial application for consent for 'matters specified in conditions' was submitted in June 2011 and that formed the main basis of Mr C's four complaints. (Such applications relate to conditions attached to planning permissions in principle which require the further approval, consent or agreement of the planning authority for any detailed aspect of the development.)

Mr C complained that the council provided inaccurate and misleading information about access arrangements to the campus; a council officer failed to remain impartial when providing advice to a councillor and acted unreasonably by failing to respond to Mr C's letter, and the chief executive failed to respond to Mr C's letter of complaint within a reasonable time scale.

Our investigation found that the council conceded that the report on the first 'matters specified in conditions' application could have been clearer. It was not, however, acted on. The matter was put to the relevant council committee and continued, when it was re-presented in an amended form and considered along with a second 'matters specified in conditions' application. Both applications were approved. As we found no evidence of maladministration we did not uphold this complaint. Nor did we uphold the complaints about the council officer. We found no evidence to suggest that she was not impartial in giving professional advice to the councillor, and while Mr C provided evidence that he had emailed a letter to her, we could not independently confirm that she had received it. We did, however, uphold the complaint about the chief executive's response, as he accepted that it had been delayed. We did not make any recommendations as he had already apologised to Mr C for this.

Summary

Mr and Mrs C who were housing association tenants raised their concern about the condition of their back garden. A joint visit by the council and the housing association to view the condition of the garden had been carried out in 2007. The complainants were unhappy with that visit and disagreed with the accuracy of the report prepared by the council following the visit in 2007. They were dissatisfied that the council had now advised them that they would not inspect their back garden.

Our investigation found that there was no evidence of maladministration in relation to the council's handling of the matter. The council's social work service had visited the property in 2006 and had made a number of recommendations to the housing association in line with their social work responsibilities. At the request of social work services the council's health and safety adviser had visited the complainants' property in 2007 and had prepared a note of the visit. This was within their remit of giving advice to social work services. While Mr and Mrs C disagreed with the accuracy of the note, the council had confirmed that the officer who had drafted the document had confirmed that it was an accurate record. We advised the complainants that, as this related to a note prepared a number of years ago and as the officer was no longer with the council, further enquiries by this office would not add to the information already available.

We also found it was not within the remit of the council's health and safety service to carry out an inspection of a household at a householder's request and, as a result, the council had advised the complainants that they would not carry out a visit to their property. However, we found that discussions were ongoing between Mr and Mrs C and the housing association, as their landlord in relation to the garden.

Summary

Ms C complained on behalf of the residents of a new housing development, which consisted of a number of buildings. Planning permission had been approved for the development on the basis that one parking space would be provided for each property. However, due to a mistake by the developer’s architect, there was a shortfall in the number of available spaces. The developer submitted a further application, changing the proposal for one of the buildings so that underground parking that was originally planned would not be provided. Ms C complained that the council approved the second planning application without considering the impact that this had on the overall parking provision for the development.

We found that it was appropriate for the second application to be considered separately and on its own merits. However, our planning adviser told us that the council should take into account the wider context of the application, including parking provision for the site as a whole. The council had said that they did not consider the parking problems on the wider site to be a material consideration when determining the second application. We were satisfied that there was clear evidence of the matter being investigated and considered fully.

Our investigation highlighted that the developer sold a number of properties to a housing association, and the proposed number of parking spaces for those properties reduced to 25 percent in line with the requirements for affordable housing. However, the properties were later to be sold as shared ownership flats, which require 100 percent parking. We noted that the council did not have a policy in place for shared ownership properties' parking at the time of sale. Once the matter was brought to their attention, however, they amended their policy and ensured that the developer would provide 100 percent parking.

Ms C also complained that the council were working with the developer to use existing landscaped space for parking. Residents found this inappropriate, as the landscaped areas were a requirement of the original planning consent and were already minimal. We found no direct evidence of the council encouraging the developer to make use of these areas or of working with the developer. However, it was clear that the council would consider any proposals put to them, including the use of landscaped areas. We did not consider this to be inappropriate, but we made a recommendation relating to the outcome of any decision.

Recommendations

We recommended that the council:

• upon determining the planning application, provide a full and detailed explanation to the residents' steering group of the reasons for their decision.

Summary

Mr C said that when he moved into his house, he was aware that affordable housing was being built on land behind it. He found out later that this was to be social housing. When building was completed, the council opened a link pathway between the two estates and Mr C said that since then he had been subject to antisocial behaviour from residents of the new estate. He considered that the path was the root of the problem, and asked the council to close it. His request was heard by the council’s leadership panel. It was initially intended that the item about his complaint should be held in private but, on the day, the panel took the decision to hold the meeting in public and he was not notified of this.

We did not uphold the complaint. We found that, in deciding to recommend that the item be held in private, council officers took the view that there was a risk of potential victimisation of Mr C and of others requesting the closure of the lane. We also found, however, that the relevant legislation provides for the holding of council meetings in public, except where the council decides to exclude the public when considering an item that is likely to disclose exempt information. Decisions about whether to consider an item in public or private take place at council meetings. We accepted the view of one of the panel members that the matter was of some local interest and that it would have been inappropriate to hold it in private as it had been discussed several times at tenants' and residents’ association meetings. We also accepted the council’s explanation of why it would have been remiss of them to have encouraged attendance at a meeting where the original decision for discussion in private had been taken to protect the residents making the complaint.

Summary

Mr C lives close to a church building which had fallen out of use. It had been the subject of unsuccessful planning applications for conversion and change of use to flats. In late 2009 a successful application was made to convert the building to a crematorium. Mr C and his wife did not live close enough to the building to be notified about this application. In the autumn of 2011, however, Mr C became aware of the provisions of the Cremation Act 1902 (the Act), which stipulate that no new crematorium should be built closer than 200 yards from the nearest house or 50 yards from a public road, without the permission of owners and occupiers. Mr C complained to the council, saying that they had failed to have proper regard for the Act in granting planning consent for the conversion and failed to protect Mr C's residential amenity; unreasonably delayed in dealing with his complaint, and unreasonably failed to answer his questions about their response to a Scottish Government consultation on the Act.

After seeking independent advice from our planning adviser, we found that the council, with qualification, were entitled to decide that the distance stipulations were not relevant to the granting of planning consent as they formed part of a different regulatory framework. There was also no evidence that the amenity of residents was disregarded when determining the application, and we did not uphold these complaints. We found that there had indeed been a delay in dealing with Mr C's complaint (but the council had apologised) and that they had neglected to answer his query about the council's consultation response. That issue was resolved by a senior officer explaining an apparent inconsistency. We, therefore, upheld both of those complaints, but made no recommendations.

Summary

Mr C complained that the council charged him a late renewal fee for his landlord registration, although he had not received email reminders that the council said were issued. The council confirmed that these were issued automatically by the Scottish Government’s online landlord registration system and that nothing had been received from Mr C’s email address saying that they were not delivered.

We were unable to prove or disprove whether the reminder emails were sent and received. However, when we investigated it was clear that it was Mr C’s responsibility to ensure that he renewed his registration in a timely manner. His previous registration in May 2008 was valid for three years. It was, therefore, due for renewal in May 2011. However, we found that he had not contacted the council for advice on the application process until March 2012. In the circumstances, we did not uphold the complaint.